In fact, we don’t use much gas at all. We have a lovely built-in gas hob, oven and grill, but the Jotul range meets pretty much all our needs. Even in high summer we’re more inclined to fire it
up with a few bits of fast-burning wood to cook the evening meal. But the range really comes into its own when the weather is cool: on tick-over it keeps the boat cosy, whilst effectively providing free cooking heat for stews, soups, steamed puddings, breads and carrot cake, things that are so costly when cooked on gas. And I’ll give you my recipe for baked beans, though it’ll spoil you for tinned ones I’m afraid. Most days there’s the aroma of something warming on the go.
The gas hob is the Bloke’s hero first thing in the morning, as he is usually the first to get up. On those rare days when I’m up first, my inclination is to tickle up the fire and fiddle about doing
something else until the kettle comes to the boil. The Bloke, however, on waking, requires instant tea-gratification, so his first action once vertical is to plonk the kettle on the hob and light the gas. And the gas oven comes into its own on those occasions when we may have picked up some cold wood by accident, and the roast in the range is cooked but just won’t crisp and brown, so a blast in the gas oven fixes that.
As a footnote, the wood we burn is mostly fished out of the canal or picked up dead from woods and hedgerows as we cruise, though in the depths of winter we may add some coal to keep the fires going through the night.
